One of the things that discourages young investors is they just don’t have enough capital to make a difference. A $500 investment that earns 10% is an additional $50, or about the cost of a night out.
Big deal.
Perhaps it’s time to look at the world a little differently. Young people don’t have much capital. But they do have time, and an excess of time allows someone to invest in themselves. The easiest and most cost-effective way to invest in yourself is to read a book about something you’re interested in.
This can be easily be done for free if you’re a member of a library. Even if you’re buying the book outright, the lessons contained within it are easily worth the $20 or $30 price tag.
My favorite are business biographies. They condense a great person’s life to just a few hundred pages, squeezing out all the frivolous details. What’s left are the truly important lessons, the kind of stuff you can truly learn from.
It’s no coincidence that most of the world’s most successful people are regular readers. These folks are constantly learning from the world around them, and reading is the most efficient way to do so.
Even one small insight can be extremely valuable if you apply it to other parts of your life. The world is filled with successful businesses that copied one thing from a different sector and used it in an innovative way.
The bottom line? An investment of $20 and a little bit of your time could pay off thousands of times over. It sure beats earning 10% on a small initial investment in the stock market.
